Interactions between bottleneck-effects and mating systems
Interactions between bottleneck-effects and mating systems
In my project I want to look at the interaction between population bottlenecks or founder effects and mating systems. On the one hand the mating system can greatly affect a population's recovery after a bottleneck, on the other hand frequently occurring bottlenecks might shape the populations mating strategies. These processes are very important for extinction or survival of small or threatened populations. The first part of this project is in cooperation with Steven Ramm from the Department of Evolutionary Biology. We model the mating system of hermaphroditic animals. Specifically, we consider flatworms that can mate with other individuals or self-fertilize. So called 'selfing' grants reproductive assurance in case no mating partners are available, but comes at the cost of losing offspring due to inbreeding depression. Can recurrent bottlenecks lead to a system where both strategies are present with individual variation in selfing propensity? Further I want to look into mating systems with polygamy and skewed sex ratios due to temperature dependent sex determination.